NBC News Highlights Senator Hassan’s Push that Led to FDA Announcing it Has Stopped Issuing Contracts to McKinsey Pending Federal Investigations

WASHINGTON – In case you missed it, NBC News highlighted Senator Maggie Hassan’s (D-NH) questioning during a Senate hearing yesterday where a top official at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that the FDA has stopped issuing contracts to the consulting firm, McKinsey & Co., while ongoing investigations look into the failure by McKinsey to disclose potential conflicts of interest while the firm was working with the FDA on issues related to opioids at the same time it was working for opioid companies, including Purdue Pharma.

Senator Hassan has led efforts dating back to last year to hold the FDA and McKinsey responsible for potential conflicts of interest, and earlier this month the Senator led her colleagues in calling for a Health and Human Services Inspector General investigation on the FDA’s work with McKinsey and FDA’s contracting policies.

Click here or see below for excerpts from NBC News:

NBC News: FDA to halt McKinsey contracts amid federal probes into opioid work

By Dan De Luce

The Food and Drug Administration says it will not issue new contracts to the consulting firm McKinsey and Co. pending the outcome of investigations into whether the company failed to divulge potential conflicts of interest over its work for both the FDA and opioid manufacturers.

A top official at the FDA announced the decision at a Senate hearing Tuesday after lawmakers had pressed the agency over its work with the global consultant firm.

[…] Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire grilled FDA officials at Tuesday’s hearing over why the agency did not question McKinsey’s contract given media reports about its links to opioid makers.

Hassan said it “strains credulity to think that nobody at the FDA involved with McKinsey between 2019 and 2021 had any idea that the company had major potential conflicts of interest based on news reports in major publications.”

“How is the FDA adjusting its contracting processes going forward to ensure that it is aware of publicly reported information about apparent conflicts of interest with major companies to which it is awarding tens of millions of dollars in contracts?” Hassan said at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

The FDA’s announcement came a day before the managing partner of McKinsey is due to testify before Congress over a new congressional report that accused the company of failing to divulge conflicts of interest due to its work for Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of the opioid OxyContin, and the FDA’s office that regulates the safety of medications. […]

###